What Is the Holy Namah Sivaya Mantra?

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Om Namah Sivaya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God Siva dances His dance of creation, preservation and dissolution within the five elements. Namah Sivaya holds the secret of transformation, a power so perfect it can turn the instinctive nature, depicted as a ruffian, toward superconsciousness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Namah Sivaya is among the foremost Vedic mantras. It means "adoration to Siva" and is called the Panchakshara, or "five-letters." Within its celestial tones and hues resides all of the intuitive knowledge of Saivism. Aum.

Namah Sivaya is the most holy name of God Siva, recorded at the very center of the Vedas and elaborated in the Saiva Agamas. Na is the Lord's concealing grace, Ma is the world, Si stands for Siva, Va is His revealing grace, Ya is the soul. The five elements, too, are embodied in this ancient formula for invocation. Na is earth, Ma is water, Si is fire, Va is air, and Ya is ether, or akasha. Many are its meanings. Namah Sivaya has such power, the mere intonation of these syllables reaps its own reward in salvaging the soul from bondages of the treacherous instinctive mind and the steel bands of a perfected externalized intellect. Namah Sivaya quells the instinct, cuts through the steel bands and turns this intellect within and on itself, to face itself and see its ignorance. Sages declare that mantra is

life, that mantra is action, that mantra is love and that the repetition of mantra, japa, bursts forth wisdom from within. The holy Natchintanai proclaims, "Namah Sivaya is in truth both Agama and Veda. Namah Sivaya represents all mantras and tantras. Namah Sivaya is our souls, our bodies and possessions. Namah Sivaya has become our sure protection." Aum Namah Sivaya.

 

---Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami